Grace Bible Fellowship plans new community center

A new community center is in the works for Sikeston.

Grace Bible Fellowship recently purchased approximately four acres at the corner of Compress and Petty for the purpose of building a community center for Sikeston residents.

“We have been dreaming about a community center since we merged in the fall of 2019 and were able to purchase the property this spring,” said William Marshall, co-pastor of Grace Bible Fellowship along with Kenny King.

In 2019, Marshall’s church, Trinity Baptist, and King’s church, Smith Chapel, merged into Grace Bible Fellowship. At that time, both Marshall and King were committed to the idea of “incarnational ministry.”

“Which means that we wanted to be the hands and feet of Jesus to the community, particularly the community surrounding Kenny’s former church building in the west end of Sikeston,” Marshall said. “We had a dream even then to build a community center in that area, so we began to look for property for sale.”

While looking, they found land available at the corner of Compress and Petty, which was exciting for the pair. The land borders Lincoln Park and is across the street from the new Lincoln University Extension facility.

Both Marshall and King felt it would be a prime location for a community center.

“It is a community that has historically been underserved, and we wanted to have a lasting impact in the community,” King said. “We praise God for our current buildings, but their size and location are not ideal for what we want to accomplish. We want to show our love for the people in the community through our sacrifice and proximity, just as Jesus showed his love for us by coming to the earth and sacrificing himself for us.”

King said growing up in the Sunset area, there were safe places like Lincoln gym where they could go for activities, food programs and educational opportunities and they want that for kids today.

“These places had adults who invested in me and my peers,” King said. “They showed us that they cared. The primary benefit to me is for people to know that we care, that Jesus cares. After that, we want kids and adults to have a safe place to go for various purposes.

“We want to provide free to low-cost options for people who may not be able to afford what’s currently offered in our town. We want to provide a place for people to play basketball and other activities when the weather doesn’t permit them to be outside.”

Marshall said the community center could prove to be many things for many people.

“Lincoln Park provides a great meeting place for outside activities, but a community center could be used for events that need to be inside,” Marshall said. “We would love to see it used for after school programs, sports leagues for kids and adults, health fairs and job fairs, as well as other meetings/events that could serve the community.”

Marshall added they want the facility to be a tornado/storm shelter that would be available to the community when needed. Other potential uses for the Center could be child care services, job training, exercise classes and more.

“We would love to hear from the community about how we could use the center to serve as many people as possible,” Marshall said. “We recently met with city officials to get ideas from them and we received some good suggestions. Some have commented on our Facebook videos with good suggestions as well.”

King added they have been gathering suggestions for a community center as far back as when the two churches merged.

“When we merged in 2019, we went door-to-door surveying the neighborhood to get an idea on how to use our current community center (former Smith Chapel),” King said. “Some of those ideas will be incorporated into the new community center.”

There is currently no concrete timeline but Marshall said the church will continue to dream and plan for the rest of the year with the hope to begin construction in 2022.